


Sweet Living

by fluffernutter8



Category: Agent Carter (TV), Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - The Great British Bake Off Fusion, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-16
Updated: 2017-04-16
Packaged: 2018-10-19 21:10:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,092
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10648107
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fluffernutter8/pseuds/fluffernutter8
Summary: An international amateur baking competition doesn't seem like a good idea. Until it is.





	Sweet Living

**Author's Note:**

> I've been watching a lot of GBBO. Sorry. Ish.

“An _international_ baking competition?”

Among Peggy’s lengthy list of talents is the ability to give off the impression of dismissively blowing a smoke ring without actually smoking anything. She uses this to full effect while facing the man in front of her.

Unfortunately, he doesn’t seem cowed. “That’s right,” says Nick Fury calmly, not bothering to repeat himself, barely bothering to twitch an eyebrow. Peggy actually lets her mouth tick up at the corner. She likes a challenge.

“Of course, there’s no need for you to compete,” says Pepper, one of Peggy’s original producers, hastily. She’s a businesslike redhead who Peggy actually quite likes although she still seems a bit daunted by Peggy. “I know you’ve read your contract, but you fulfilled the terms in full when you won the original competition.”

Peggy smiles at her. “Oh, I read the fine print, don’t worry.” She turns back to Fury. “I’ve not heard anything to really convince me to participate.”

Fury raises an eyebrow this time, as if he’s used to people jumping to listen to him or sign whatever he puts in front of them, and he might be enjoying something new. “I don’t really have much for you. We already have most countries we asked buying in. We’d like to have someone representing England.” He shrugs casually. “Might be able to get the winner from the season before yours, but doesn’t quite have the snap for the slogan. ‘Winner from two seasons ago.’”

Peggy nearly laughs. The attempt to appeal to her pride, as if she’d give in just so someone else won’t have their face on the poster, is clumsy and disappointingly less than she would have expected of him.

“The glory of England? That’s what I’m meant to be competing for?”

“Come on, Carter. Do your part for queen and country. And anyway,” Fury adds, an afterthought, “I’ve heard that you have the time these days.”

Peggy isn’t sure where he heard that. He’s a Hollywood producer, and she’s not sure where he would have heard about her quitting the police force. But something about the lightness of his voice makes her think that he even knows about that final shouting fight, the chief superintendent, a man from the union, a woman from human resources, and two of her colleagues all crammed into an office, voices rising over each other until she’d realized that they weren’t even trying to convince her not to go, despite her having the highest solve rate in the department, they were just giving her the “calm down, sweetheart,” routine that had brought them all there in the first place.

It has been only two weeks since she’d walked away, and she’s still planning next steps and getting things in order.

“You don’t have to decide now,” Pepper adds, her voice layered with chill as she looks at Fury.

“That’s alright,” says Peggy. She looks at him as well. It isn’t about weakness or giving in or being blackmailed. This is her decision, perhaps sudden, but hers, just as much as joining the police and going for detective and leaving when it was clear how little appreciation they had for her, were all her choices. “I’ve actually been considering a vacation.”

* * *

Somehow, despite the fact that Peggy does not technically have a job, she finds the next few months going by. She has to return to her office to sign papers, nearly all about removing responsibility and liability from the department. The final time she’s there, as she removes her last things, only one of her coworkers, only one of the men she’d sat beside on stakeouts and bled beside in the thick of things, even comes up to shake her hand.

She spends some time with her family- she’s let work take things over in the past few years, giving it more time, more self, in a slogging, set-jawed effort to force them into appreciation or at least acceptance. Her youngest niece is nearly walking now, and Peggy takes Sharon touring around the Carter family holdings, pointing out the best climbing trees and the bushes they use to make jam in the summer, and telling her how Peggy will come up with a special jam cake for her next birthday. At night, alone in her bare and stripped down childhood room, she starts researching how to become a private investigator. Although she appreciates the potential for independence and the automatic trust and respect she’ll give herself, she has to remind herself that leaving the police was the right choice.

There’s also the matter of a new place to live. She’d chosen her last place mostly because of its proximity to work, and now that she doesn’t have that same commute, there’s little to recommend it. Her new building is mostly populated by older ladies and gentleman, which might put off most people of Peggy’s age, but which she actually enjoys. They’re sweet old things, most of them, always willing to come over with something good to eat to try and “get some meat on her,” and they’re open with the advice. A few of them actually recognize her right off, congratulating her but not dwelling, which she appreciates.

Through all of this, she manages to check in every so often on the progress of Nick Fury’s great amateur baking Olympiad. Peggy is one of few already established national representatives, so she has to wait through the other countries holding competitions and declaring a winner. There’s a bit of a disaster when one of the Russian contestants turns out to be quite a bit more professional than he let on, and another when someone anonymously informs the German judges that the reason one of their participants is technically perfect but uncreative one week and the opposite the next is that it’s actually been identical twins trading off.

And then there’s the whole American affair. Peggy feels a bit gleeful, thinking of Fury trying to play referee between the cable and broadcast networks over who will host the official show for the United States. However, she doesn’t particularly care for the drama of the format they finally decide on. She’d so enjoyed the quiet of her experience, the joking and the pastoral atmosphere, the shiny pastels and the hugs and the way the contestants and even the hosts would help each other along. The clips she catches of the American version show lots of dark, flashing lighting and yelling voices. There’s plenty of literal throwing in of towels, though it doesn’t seem to really depend on whether contestants win or lose.

It’s very strange to see how seriously people seem to be taking an amateur baking competition that doesn’t even have any sort of significant prize. Peggy actually begins to wonder if she should have left it to the previous season’s winner to act as representative, but she gets out her mixing bowls instead. She’s not doing anything else, and anyway, she can feel the chase of competition beginning to slide through her. She practices working with the phyllo dough that has always been her downfall and smiles like granulated sugar when her baklava come out of the oven glossy and perfect.

Despite all the setbacks, things seem finally set for the competition to begin. Peggy’s mother doesn’t invite as much as expect her for dinner the night before she leaves for Amsterdam. (The Netherlands had not decided to send a representative, and so was deemed an appropriately neutral location. It had wanted to provide the judges as well, but they had been selected from an international baking association instead.)

“Do you get a big prize at the end?” her nephew Harry asks, spooning pudding carefully into his mouth.

Peggy smiles at that, the absolute assurance that she’ll win, as if there’s no other possibility. “Well, I got that lovely cake stand last time. I think this time I might get some new baking equipment from the advertisers.”

“Really it’s just to show that Aunt Peggy is the best baker _in the world_ ,” Annie tells him.

“But Aunt Peggy will just do the best she knows she can do,” Annie’s mum tells her pointedly. Peggy hides a smile in her teacup. She’s played cards with Annie, and she knows that her oldest niece can be dramatic whether she wins or loses.

“But you are going to win, aren’t you?” Annie whispers when she and Peggy are helping to clear the table afterward. Peggy just winks.

* * *

She’s meant to go see Fury when she arrives, but he’s dealing with something, so she waits outside the office of the suite he’s commandeered at their hotel in Amsterdam. Fury’s assistant with the blunt red hair and vaguely amused smile is there tapping away on a tablet, along with another man, who stares around the room as they sit together.

“Seems like he’s living up to his name,” Peggy murmurs to the man in the other seat as they listen to Fury shouting and then slamming down the phone in the next room.

“Yeah, he really seems up for a visit.” He speaks _sotto voce_ , sarcasm threading through, but his accent is clearly American. He has something of classic look, wide and blond haired, but with a sort of grace to him too, even seated. She knows that the American competitor is a different blond man, one with a bit of a squint and a broad, bragging grin, Jack something, so it’s unclear what this one is doing here.

“Rogers,” Fury nods, stepping out of the room. The man stands immediately, hands moving behind his back before he sticks them purposefully in his pockets instead. “Thompson’s out. Thought that just because he’d gotten some unpasteurized cheese into the country, he’d be fine bringing it back out. They’re busting him for both ways and won’t let him travel now. You’re in. Natasha will bring you over, make sure you have everything you need for your setup there.”

The man, who Peggy can now guess is Steve Rogers, the runner-up in the American competition, doesn’t seem particularly excited, the way Peggy can imagine Thompson being if the situations were reversed. But he nods, first to Fury, then to Natasha, then, belatedly, when Natasha’s already left and he’s followed her to the door, to Peggy. He accompanies it with a vague, awkward wave gesture which leaves Peggy facing Fury with half a smile on her face.

* * *

Although they’ll be making plenty of episodes with the footage, the filming is only meant to last six weeks, so they’re starting with bracket rounds, win or go home each day to knock out people with rapid drama. Peggy doesn’t see Rogers for the first week. She spends the first portion competing against a man from Paraguay and one from Australia, and an elderly woman from Morocco who has the most confident hands Peggy has ever known.

When Peggy’s doughnuts, a little unevenly cooked, win over Naima’s _sfinj_ on the final day, Peggy stares straight into the camera, and says, “Well, they could barely seem to pronounce the word, so perhaps they aren’t quite the experts to judge this particular dessert.” Naima chuckles, making sure the camera catches it, along with the way she kisses Peggy on both cheeks before she leaves.

She is still thinking about it that night, out on the patio behind the hotel, wrapped up in a coat. The lights are down, leaving her to think of how to handle it. Perhaps the best course would be to leave in protest. She has no particular allegiance to the competition, and she can live with disappointment of the people of England and even of her family.

“I know, Buck,” says a voice behind her. When she turns, she sees Steve Rogers striding out from the bright lobby into the night of the outdoors. “But I’m not going to…Bucky- Bucky!” Whoever he’s fighting with seems to take a break or a breath, because Rogers, sounding fond and tired says, “I’m not going to let you and your family do this for me. We don’t even know if this is what I want. It’s too much now. At least wait. Wait until I get back.” He rubs the back of his neck, laughing a bit. “Yeah. Okay. I’ll use avoiding you as an excuse to actually try to win.”

He hangs up, takes a deep breath, so that Peggy can see his shoulders rise and fall. As he comes over to take a seat, Peggy shifts so that the material of her coat brushes against the arms of her chair, making a soft shushing sound.

“Hi,” he says, as if he’s the one who’s been caught. “I didn’t see you there.”

“Camouflage,” Peggy says, shrugging a dark-coated shoulder and indicating a chair nearby. He sits. “But I suppose sitting out in the dark is also helpful in hiding yourself.”

“Do you want me to leave?” He actually starts to get up.

“You’re fine, Rogers. You’ve been invited.” After a minute of silence, she tilts her head toward him. “Do your- Are your people back home excited for you?”

The sound he makes, a quick, closed-eyed exhalation, is barely a laugh. “My friends know I didn’t even really want to compete the first time. I didn’t win then when I needed it.” He shakes his head. “Not even Fury thinks that I want to be here at all.”

Peggy can hear a bitterness in his voice that seems uncharacteristic. “You think you should have won back in the States?”

He shrugs. “I got better feedback. They liked what I baked more often. But Thompson was flashier, louder, so they focused on him a lot. By the time is was just the two of us, I’d barely showed up except in the baking parts.”

“And those don’t always matter as they should,” she nods. She feels luckier by comparison.

“I surprised everyone by lasting. If I’d won, I guess it would have been like a stranger winning and the audience likes to feel like they know at least the image they’ve seen on TV.”

Peggy understands that. When she finally watched the episodes she’d made before, she’d found that she was portrayed as The Competent One, not truly arrogant, but not necessarily friendly either, more focused on keeping her head down and keeping on than anything else.

“It doesn’t matter,” Rogers says, “I got a little cash for that one, and I needed it for something. I need professional grade mixing bowls less.”

“You can always sell them, I suppose, if you win.”

“I think it’s more likely that you’ll get there.” Someone shouts across the lobby inside, and they both glance over inattentively. His voice is quieter when they turn back. “I heard about this afternoon.”

Peggy shakes her head. Voice equally quiet but very firm, she says, “The whole point of this is to meet on even ground. If people from outside Europe or English-speaking countries like yours aren’t being judged equally, based on their own skills and cultures, than it’s an unbearable advantage.”

“You’re thinking about leaving?” although she hasn’t actually said anything of the sort and doesn’t say anything now. He sits for a moment, and though it’s dark, she can tell he’s watching her.

Finally he leans forward. “I’ve lost a lot of people. Not- Not in baking competitions, obviously, but whenever I lose someone, whenever I come up against that unfairness, I try to fight it by making whatever I do next a tribute to those who are gone.” He shakes his head. “It isn’t right for them to do this. But if you quit the competition over this, they’d probably just edit you out or lie about why you left. I’d hate for you to leave without anyone even understanding why, and for someone who doesn’t care about any of this, who doesn’t even consider it, to get through instead.”

The next morning, as they interview her before the next round, they ask Peggy what she’d most looking forward to. “Winning for Naima,” she says, and smiles flawlessly.

* * *

Coincidence leaves her moving through the brackets without meeting Steve in competition, but as they each progress to the next round, they meet at night, to talk about their days and their co-contestants and who they are outside of this place.

“I’ve heard the Swiss guy, Zola, is one to watch,” Steve tells her as he comes out one night, tossing her a bottle of the Indonesian strawberry juice she’s fallen for. “He’s precise, but he also takes advantage when people are weak.” He sounds disgusted rather than competitive as he says it. After a few weeks of living full time with the other contestants, Peggy knows how rare that is here.

“Sounds like you’ve come across someone like that before,” Peggy says, cracking open her bottle and taking a sip.

“Happens too often where I’m from.”

“Army, or New York?” she asks. This is part of the collection of things she’s learned about Steve, from pieces of the original American baking competition she’s watched since meeting him, and interviews they’ve had since arriving in Amsterdam, and the stories Steve’s told her. He was honorably discharged six months ago, and is now living back home in Brooklyn. Peggy wonders if he still pictures himself in his uniform, the way she still nearly introduces herself as “Detective” sometimes because that’s the way she still feels inside.

Steve sips his coffee, considering for a moment. “Both,” he says eventually. “There was one guy, on base with us in Afghanistan. His name was Hodge, but we called him Vulture, because he was the type to swoop in, take advantage of a bad situation. If someone was injured, he’d pick through their stuff while they were gone. If something bad was going on back home, he’d have connections who could get extra calls, but he’d charge for them.” He leans back, but Peggy can tell by the way his shoulders stay relaxed rather than gearing up for a fight with someone who isn’t even there, that he’s about to recount some comeuppance. “This one time, he’d heard that one of my guys, Dugan, had gotten a package with anniversary chocolates from his wife, but his wife had gone into the hospital since she’d sent them. So Hodge shows up, putting on a show about how he’ll take those chocolates off Dugan’s hands so he doesn’t have the reminder.” Peggy leans toward him; she knows what’s coming. “Bucky, he’d heard that Hodge was coming for them. So the two of us sat and made little cuts, took a syringe from the med kit, and filled all the chocolates with pure pepper. We got someone to take a picture when Hodge bit into them. He didn’t come back for any of our stuff.”

Peggy had planned to do a three cheese and rosemary topping for her focaccia, but she switches to truffle and cracked pepper at the last minute. “I feel like I can taste the energy, the story, in this,” one of the judges tells her. The wink Peggy gives the camera is so quick it might be dust in her eye.

* * *

She knew it was coming. She’s been so glad that Steve hasn’t gone home yet, though, that she’s somewhat refused to think about what that would mean. But then she shows up on the first morning of the last week, and he’s already nodding through some instructions from Phil, the director.

“You ready for this?” she asks, nudging up against him.

He laughs, broad as his body, but silent. “I’m always ready for you, Carter.”

The final lasts all week, and is cumulative. Peggy’s shortbread triumphs on the first day, but Steve’s eclairs win raves. They both lose on the soda bread, which leaves them sitting together that evening, tipsily saying that they’re both somewhat Irish and their mothers would be ashamed of them.

“Bucky’s going to be on my case about this forever,” says Steve with an exaggeratedly sad face. “I won a church baking competition with that bread in eighth grade, and he wasn’t allowed to date Mary Rose Keller because her mother had been the runner up and knew that he hung around with me, and now it can’t even win me this thing.”

“It’s worse that it was Zola who won,” Peggy says, not even caring that he might be inside listening; he seems the type.

“Hey.” Steve taps her on the arm. “Makes it more dramatic for when you beat him tomorrow.”

* * *

Before she goes up against Zola the next morning, however, she meets Bucky. Some friends and relatives have been flown in for the final, and for the first time, Peggy sees Bucky outside of a quick talking head piece. She doesn’t stare, but the very high-tech prosthetic arm is hard not to notice.

Steve complains a lot about problems with the Veterans’ Affairs offices, and she remembers him telling her that Bucky’s father is a construction worker and Bucky’s sometimes worked with him since they’ve been back.

She suddenly has an idea of what exactly Steve might have needed the original prize money for.

Bucky looks like he recognizes her as well when they go to shake hands. “Hope you know what you’re up against, Carter,” he says, sounding charming rather than combative.

“Steve has a habit of leaving his fruits with too much juice. I’m not worried about my pies,” she says, purposefully obtuse. He moves to greet Steve looking like he knows it, too.

Her nieces and nephews run right up to her as soon as they arrive. Peggy’s sure that the moment is being filmed as a way to make her look surprisingly motherly, out of character considering the firm, businesslike way they portray her, but she doesn’t care.

Annie and Harry talk over each other, pulling at her top, bouncing around. But somehow it’s Sharon’s quiet voice that Peggy hears. She picks her up, and Sharon, firmly a toddler now, whispers, “My berries.”

Peggy looks over at her, then at the rest of her family, walking over more sedately. She hadn’t told anyone she’d brought the berries, or the last jars of jam she’d made before she left home. She leans her mouth toward where Sharon’s small head rests on her shoulder. “That’s right, my love,” she whispers.

* * *

Everything starts perfectly, which should be something of a sign. The final challenge is to make an elaborate scene or sculpture using pies, pastries, and cake, a daunting endeavor, but one Peggy feels ready for. Until she takes her cake out and turns her back to put her pies in and hears from behind the distinctive sound of her cake falling to the floor.

She puts the pies in carefully before she turns, finding Zola there, apologizing stiffly. She might chalk the inauthenticity up to his accent or his personality, but he turns back to his bench with a smile catching the corner of his mouth. Peggy watches furiously for an additional second before turning back, ready to regroup.

As she looks, Steve appears at her shoulder. “Can you do another cake in time?”

“It isn’t a matter of mixing up the batter,” she says, unclenching her teeth. “There’s no way I’ll have time to bake everything.”

“Use my oven,” he says immediately.

“Don’t be stupid. How are you going to do your baking, just will everything ready?”

“I’ll worry about that.” He lowers his voice even further, mindful of the cameras. “Look, I don’t care about winning. You care, and you deserve it, you’ve always deserved it.”

She moves back, eyes flicking over him, evaluating quickly. Truth in his face, only truth. “Fine. Keep on with your things until I’m ready.”

He does, but as soon as he sees her starting to put things together, he abandons his bench, and pretends not to hear when she orders him back. She isn’t sure whether that’s exactly an attractive quality, but she doesn’t have the time to focus. She has to cut sponge and frost and arrange pies. Steve seems to know instinctively where things go and when to add them. He moves back and forth between his area and hers, adding to each of their creations until time is called and she can finally take everything in.

Her model of their patio looks perfect as she brings it up, the lattice of the pies imitating the seats of the chairs and the metalwork of the table, the sponge umbrella holding up despite the unlikely architecture. She knows that the pies will be full of strawberries from home, and the cake will taste perfectly of coffee.

She can tell what Steve meant to do: he managed his blue sheet cake for water, and she can picture how the bridge was supposed to transform from the Brooklyn Bridge on one side to London Bridge on the other with little, unconventionally-shaped pie cars moving across. Still, he didn’t quite manage it for helping her.

The judges are kind enough to him, but it’s clear that he hasn’t won them over. He listens to them at attention, seeming unbothered. Everyone is more impressed with Zola’s airplane and its little pie windows. Then they turn to Peggy’s patio.

“This looks familiar,” smiles one of the judges, who Peggy’s seen around the hotel. Peggy looks at it closely for the first time as the judges dig in.

It’s then that she notices the decorations Steve was able to add while she was distracted: Naima’s name piped around the umbrella, iced into the patio tiles, carved from frozen chocolate and embedded in a welcome mat by where the door would be.

She glances at him. She hopes the camera hasn’t caught it because she doesn’t think she ever wants anyone but him seeing that particular expression.

When they declare Peggy the winner, Zola complains that she should have been disqualified for having help.

“Contestants are allowed to assist other contestants,” Fury reminds him with stiffly crossed arms. “In the rules, same as the part where contestants aren’t allowed to sabotage other contestants.” Zola flushes and walks away.

“It wasn’t a surrender,” Peggy hears Steve telling one of the hosts, nearby. She can tell he’s smiling. “It was a melding of cultures. Isn’t that what this whole thing was about?”

* * *

Hours later, Peggy brings herself down to the patio. She’s been interviewed, and celebrated with her family, and now the kids are taking the last few hours they’re allowed in her room to rest before their late flight back home.

“Sorry I don’t have a juice tonight,” says Steve from behind her.

Peggy cranes her neck back toward him, “I think you’ve done enough for today,” she says idly.

“Just trying to make sure that the right woman won,” he says, sitting across from her.

“Hmmm.” She doesn’t really bother to agree or disagree with that. After a moment she tilts her head and comments, “Your friend didn’t quite seem to think I was the right woman this morning, you know.”

Steve freezes, lips slack for a moment. Then he gathers himself, clearly deciding something. “He rooted for you all through your season when you were back in England. He’s just sick of hearing about you every time I call home.”

They’re simple words, but they make her feel warmer than her jacket around her. And still, she can’t quite bring herself to face the affection in his face, his voice, head on. “You know, you never told me what you were arguing with Bucky about that first night.”

“Oh.” Steve crosses his arms and she almost regrets asking. But she just waits for him to speak. “His family inherited this old building back home. It’s a dump, but I was hoping that Bucky and I could fix it up, make it into apartments and maybe they could rent it out. You can rent out a shoebox in our neighborhood, and Bucky and his family deserve to make some money off of it.”

“And they don’t want to let you?”

“No, they’re fine with me fixing it up, but they…They want to give it to me, to turn into a bakery.”

“Steve.” She puts her hand out and covers his. “That’s wonderful.” But then she sees his face. “Not quite?”

He tips his head back. “I’d love to. I think about it at night, about waking up early, getting bread kneaded, having regular customers, experimenting with different kinds of cakes.”

“It sounds amazing, Steve.” She can hear the earnestness in her own voice. Her mother, especially, had loved when Peggy had started baking as a teenager, but she’d been surprised. Peggy had always been so full of energy and eager for adventure. No one had expected her to find such calm and delight and creativity in the kitchen, but she still feels the same. “So what’s the problem?”

“They’d give that to me,” says Steve softy. “They’d give me a _building_ , Peggy, and I might let them down.”

“Have you ever let them down, Steve? Have you ever let Bucky down?” she says, just as softly. “You’ve certainly never let me down, and even if you did-” She breathes in; vulnerability does not come naturally to her. “Even if you did, I think I’d like you anyway.”

“There’s one more thing,” Steve says, head still down. “I think that, if I ended up doing this, I’d want a partner. And I don’t know any good bakers in New York except for Jack Thompson, and I’d hate to see his ugly mug every morning.”

When he looks up at her, he’s smiling, a tiny, nervous, sideways sort of thing. She thinks back to the screaming match in her boss’s office. No one had been smiling then, but she feels the same certainty she had in the pit of her belly on that day, the certainty that she was about to make a choice than everyone, even her recently-passed self, would think insane, and the equal certainty that it was the right choice.

“I’m quite demanding,” she tells him. “You’ll have to find me an in with a landlord because I loved my last place and I don’t fancy living in a shoebox, and you’ll have to introduce me to someone who sells fresh berries.”

She squeezes his hand on the table, just where he’s piped Naima’s name in the thinnest strings of strawberry jam on the pie version. He smiles fully at her in the darkness. “I think we can take care of that.”


End file.
